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Women’s Tour wraps with a fast final stage in the heart of London

A hard week of racing at the OVO Energy Women’s Tour concluded for ORICA-SCOTT today with a top 20 finish for stage four winner Sarah Roy on a lightening fast final circuit in central London.

The Australian outfit raced the final 60kilometres of this years tour at the front of the peloton for most of the final day of competition with Gracie Elvin following the early attacks before crashing and immediately bouncing back up again, unharmed to rejoin the peloton.

Attacks peppered the stage with huge crowds lining the streets around Westminster and Piccadilly. The stage was won from a bunch sprint by Jolien D’Hoore (Wiggle-High5) with Kasia Niewiadoma (WM3) holding on to the leaders jersey to seal the overall tour win.

The weeks racing concluded after the teams hard work led only to back to back top 20 finishes for Elvin over the first three days for the some frustration started to creep in and on stage four a change in tactics and approach was rewarded with a stunning stage victory from the breakaway for Roy.

Roy’s victory is the first UCI Women’s WorldTour win of this season for ORICA-SCOTT and provided a just reward for the team’s hard work here in England.

After losing Georgia Baker to illness on stage one consistent performances from Australians Jenelle Crooks, Alex Manly and Rachel Neylan provided solid support for Roy and Elvin as sport director Martin Barras acknowledged after the race.

“It has been a very challenging tour on many fronts for us,” said Barras after the race. “But the thing that has been the most pleasing is that we have worked through those challenges day by day as a team with those efforts culminating in Roy’s fantastic win yesterday on stage four.”

“A win is always a good thing, but a win achieved in that manner is a special thing and that has been really good for us. Also it shows us what we need to be working on and what we can achieve when we pool our efforts and skills to work together.

“We have a big challenge coming up with the women’s Giro d’Italia and it is our next main focus, there are things we need to work on ahead of that race, but overall I am happy with the positive signs coming from the performances this week and we’ve shown that we can win on the WorldTour and win well.”

How it happened:

The fifth and final stage of the 2017 Women’s Tour took place over 62kilometres in central London with large crowds lining the streets and a great atmosphere.

A super fast circuit race ensued with numerous attacks marking the early laps. Orica-SCOTT were active at the front of the peloton throughout with Elvin followinh the early moves before taking an unfortunate tumble only to emerge unharmed and finish the race.

The big sprinters teams were driving a relentless pace and it was D’Hoore who ran out the eventual stage winner for Wiggle-High5 from the bunch sprint.

Niewiadoma finished safe in the bunch to seal the overall victory with Roy the highest place finisher on stage five and Manly the highest placed on the general classification.